Maintenance Supervisor how-to

How to Cut Unplanned Downtime

Planned work beats emergencies.

Updated By the Career Education Institute Curriculum Team
Quick answer

Planned work beats emergencies. In short: track; rank; find, then complete the remaining steps below.

Step by step

  1. Track every breakdown.

  2. Rank by downtime.

  3. Find root causes.

  4. Add PMs for top failures.

  5. Stock critical spares.

  6. Review monthly.

Safety reminders for maintenance supervisors

  • Enforce lockout/tagout
  • Require PPE
  • Investigate incidents
  • Train on hazards

PM · CMMS · MTBF · MTTR · Work order · Backlog: see the full maintenance supervisor glossary.

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